Embodiments relate to the transfer of electronic information over a computer network, and more particularly, to systems, methods and computer program products for associating sender announcements with electronic transmissions.
Computer operating systems (e.g., Microsoft Windows) have led to the capability of personal computer users being able to keep more than one application program open at the same time. With the advent of high-speed Internet service, one of the applications that many persons find helpful to continue running while busy at other tasks on their desktops is their email application program. Currently, when a new email is received a “ping” tone is often heard to inform the user that a new message has arrived, but then the user must bring the email application program to the top of the desktop to determine the sender, the subject matter, the import, and other attributes of the message. Not until the recipient has opened his email “in box” and examined the email does he know whether it was a wise decision to interrupt his other work for this message. Further, as multiple email messages come in through out the day it becomes inefficient to drop a task to examine the import of each email.
Techniques have been proposed for allowing a user to associate a particular audio file with a particular entry/person in an address book. Thus, distinctive audio files may be used to inform the user of the presence of a new email and to indicate from whom the message was sent without requiring the user to access the email application.
While this technique may be extremely useful in practice, recipient associated announcements are dictated from the recipient's point of view (e.g., a message from a particular source is always urgent). They may be general in nature and do not take into account the changing environment and situations facing email senders.
The sender of an email on the other hand has the timely knowledge of the many circumstances, content, context, necessity and urgency of a reply and many other attributes of an email that might be conveyed with an announcement. Thus, there is a need to take advantage of the sender's real time knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the composition of an email and the sender's ability to gauge the effect of a particular announcement on the recipient.